[EM] In defense of the Electoral College (was Re: Making a Bad Thing Worse)

[Chris Benham]

Steve Eppley wrote (Th. Nov.6):
Hi,

Greg Nisbet wrote on 10/18/08:
-snip-
>The Electoral College:
>This is generally regarded as a bad thing. No one really appears to
>support it except as an adhoc version of asset voting.
-snip-

I don't believe the EC is generally accepted as a bad thing. (I picked 
the Subject line above to cite a book by the same name.)  Although I may 
have been the person who came up with the idea for how to get rid of the 
EC without a constitutional amendment (posted in EM many years ago), I 
later concluded the EC is better than a national popular vote.
-snip-

One widespread "argument" against the EC is that it flouts the commonsense
fairness axiom that all votes should be weighted equally.

"A national popular vote would exacerbate polarization, since candidates 
could/would focus on voter turnout of their "base" instead of having to 
appeal to swing voters in a few close states."

I don't see how preventing the supposed evil of  "exacerbating polarisation"
anything like justifiies the unfairness evil of weighting votes unequally.

And in any case I don't accept the argument. Why wouldn't candidates
have incentive to appeal to swing voters  *across the whole country*??

Why would anyone go to the trouble of elaborating and proposing a 
relatively complicated ranked-ballot method that is justified by meeting
the Condorcet criterion and Majority for Solid Coalitions and so on,
and then turn around and suggest that it is desirable that weighting votes
unequally should be maintained, thus ensuring that any voting method
cannot meet those criteria or even  Majority Favourite or Majority
Loser?

"A national popular vote would exacerbate the candidates' need for 
campaign money, since they would not be able to focus on the few states 
that are close.  That would make them more beholden to wealthy special 
interests.

A national popular vote would make for a nightmare when recounting a 
close election.  The recounting wouldn't be confined to a few close states."

Plenty of other countries directly elect their presidents without any EC,
and yet it is the US that has these problems (more severely).

I think the counting problems would be less likely with a national popular
vote, simply because it is very unlikely to be very close. The scenario
that it is very close in some (using the the EC)  critical states but not
close in the overall popular vote is much more likely than it being very
close in both.

 
Chris Benham


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